Dreaming on Paper

April 1st, 2009

 

Get a notebook and pen out. We’re going to have a little fun. FUN, remember– you don’t have to actually DO anything about what you write. Just give me 45 minutes and your imagination.

In the last post, I wrote about women who had changed their careers in order to make more money. They had taken hobbies, passions, ingenious ideas, and transformed them, by blood, sweat, and tears, into lucrative new opportunities.

If you didn’t already jump over to More magazine via the link, take a moment to do so now. It’s a short article: http://www.more.com/work-money/work/reinvent-yourself-richer/

Okay, now get your pen and pad ready. First, I want you to write for 15 minutes straight writing down all of hobbies, passions, or ingenious ideas. Don’t edit yourself. If you love your cats, put down cats. If you love nothing more than browsing the Dollar Store, put down The Dollar Store. Fifteen minutes- no editing, no stopping. (Think about it- if any of the women in the More article had edited themselves, they never would’ve made the leap they made. Okay?)

When you are done, you are going to pick five to ten of your hobbies, passions, or ingenious ideas and brainstorm for at least a minute on what businesses you could create based on each one. For cats, you could put luxury cat kennel, matchmaking service for cat lovers, cat sweaters… anything that comes into your head. Two minutes on each one- again, no editing.

Okay, now that you are done, I want you to pick one of your business ideas and spend ten minutes writing a short profile of yourself like the ones you read in the article, as if it’s five years from now and you have tranformed what you wrote in your notebook into a lucrative business.

When you are done, take a moment to read it over. How do you feel? Can you get a glimpse of the life that might be waiting for you if you let yourself take the first step?

Photo by neovain.

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Filed under: miscellaneous career advice

Tags: career advice